Healthy and Natural Way of Eating

There is an ancient proverb “Health is Wealth”. How many of us really understand what a true health is? We feel healthy as long as we are eating all sorts of food and our body is digesting and excreting the remains. When people like Dr. Mantena Satyanarayana Raju teaches not to eat harmful tastes like salt, sugar, oil, ghee, red chilly powder and spices that leads to diseases ‘we say this man is crazy. He says not to eat anything. One cannot survive if he follows his teachings’. It is true that he sounds crazy when he teaches you not to eat the ingredients that are regularly used in the households. But once you succumb to lifestyle disorders like diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, thyroid, hormonal imbalances, obesity etc then you realize the essence of his teachings. If I am not wrong majority of his followers are people who are suffering from one or the other kind of diseases or disorders.

Everyone wants to remain healthy but remaining healthy is not easy. You need to develop consciousness about health, needs lot of dedication, disciple and determination to remain healthy, needs to sacrifice some of your favorite foods, allot some time for physical exercises etc.

I heard from many obese people saying that they eat very little (say 2 idlis in the breakfast, little rice in lunch and the dinner). Some people say I am eating very healthy food, in spite of that I got this disease as if the disease has come from somewhere out. This is the result of unconscious lifestyle. You are counting what you are eating consciously during your breakfast, lunch and dinner but what about the things you munch rest of the time? You are not even conscious that you are eating plenty of things in between your breakfast, lunch and dinner. The body is built by your food. It is not an accident. Whatsoever you are putting in the body, the body reflects it. Unconscious eating makes the body lazy and your consciousness dull. What will you do when the fitting of your clothes become tight? You buy new clothes and stitch them with bigger size. Moreover you ask the tailor to leave 2 inches more with future expectation of your body growing big. Women in India have no problem at all as they can buy a saree of any length to cover their huge bodies under it. It may sound harsh but it is absolutely true in case of Indian women who are married in particular. I have come across many women saying that their body grew up like this after giving birth to a baby child. They think it is their fate and they have to live with all sorts of problems after delivering a baby. Only a handful of women who are health conscious come forward and join the activities like yoga, aerobic, gym and other physical exercises. There are also people who have spoiled their health and many lactating women have suffered in the name of diet with improper knowledge and guidance. In both the cases ignorance and negligence of the body is responsible for the problems. A crime is a crime whether we do it knowingly or unknowingly. The punishment is more for the crime committed knowingly. When we don’t care for our body how an outsider can, a doctor, come to our rescue? Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches. Any number of doctors, medicines and modern equipments cannot drive out the diseases totally. No matter how advanced we are scientifically, we are still lacking in health. It is because the fault lies in us, not in technology. Every man is the architect of his own future. He is also the architect of his own health. Therefore every individual seeking health must become alert and awakened before it is too late. This blog is an attempt to teach you some healthy habits of eating that leads to a good health. Let us discuss in detail how one must plan his eating habits to remain healthy and happy.

Every living being on this earth eats food only when it is hungry. But humans eat even when they are not hungry. It is mainly because human is a conscious mind and unconscious mind with a huge body. This only difference makes human a superior being among all beings on the Earth. Only a human maintains a timetable for eating food in the name of breakfast, lunch, snacks, dinner etc. Earlier even the human used to eat only when he is hungry. Then he started eating twice a day, once in the morning and in the evening. Thereafter he began to eat thrice and even four times a day. With the development of civilization, science and technology, vast availability of resources and comforts, he began to eat at will. This has led to the downfall of a mankind. He invited all sorts of trouble to his health by eating food at will. Let us go into the details of human timetable for eating food and try our best to change the lifestyle for better health in a humble way.

Breakfast:

Now let’s look at our breakfast. It is called so because we are breaking the fast of the night. The body is put to rest throughout the night during our sleep. The body tries to clear itself of the waste in its own way during this period of fasting. Putting an end to the six to seven hours of fasting in the night with light food is called breakfast. Please mark the work light food. A Light food means a food that is low in calories and easy to digest. It must contain required vitamins, minerals and natural enzymes and that can be digested with less quantity of acids produced in the stomach and intestines. One should eat the breakfast like a pauper as the entire digestive system of stomach, intestines, pancreas and Liver should relish the food. A glass of honey and water, lime juice, fruit juice, vegetable juices, fruits, sprouts, raw coconut and dates are ideal for breakfast. This kind of food not only gets digested easily but also helps in the excretion of the waste remained in the body quickly.

            

Instead of raw and natural food as mentioned above, we start our breakfast with heavy processed and cooked food like Idli sambar, dosa sambar, upma, puri, vada etc with plenty of oil, salt, red chilly powder, masala and spices. This kind of food puts extra burden on the digestive system which results in serious disorders in the long run. It may lead to gas disorders, duodenal and intestinal ulcers, fishers, piles, hemorrhoids, diabetes, hyper tension, high cholesterol etc. Can we directly see the light as soon as we open our eyes after 7 hours of sleep at night? In the same way, our stomach and intestines cannot take up heavy food immediately after a rest of 7 hours. They have to get ready slowly for the breakfast.

There is a deep relationship between the sun and the food. Jatharaagni the digestive fire in our body is highly influenced by the rays of the sun. The sun’s heat is less early in the morning and so is the digestive fire in our body. Likewise, the appetite in our intestines too starts slowly in the morning. Since the acids will be less in the morning, our breakfast should be such which can increase the acids but not to kill them and should easily be digested with less quantity of acids.

Lunch:

The sun’s heat is at the peak in the mid afternoon and so is the jatharaagni the digestive fire in your abdomen. It’s good to have lunch by 12 noon. We will be hungry by that time. It is better to provide solid food when you are hungry. Solid food means the food that provides energy to the body. Such a food consists of unpolished rice, greens, vegetables, pulses, yogurt, tubers etc. Since the jatharaagni is at peak, it is advisable to eat as much as you can in lunch. If you delay your lunch (say beyond 1 p.m.) your hunger starts to subside and you don’t feel much hungry by evening as the jatharaagni or the gastric juices produced in the intestines is reduced. You can notice this from the fact that you feel relatively less hungry at night than in the noon.

     

 

Our ancestors told that one must eat the Lunch like a King. But are we doing that? We are eating more like a pauper in the afternoon fearing that a heavy food in the afternoon makes a person dull and lazy for work. And eating like a king at night in dinner with complete vengeance causing all sorts of trouble to health.

Some people especially the housewives develop a habit of sleeping in the afternoons immediately after food. It is better to have some physical activity after lunch. It enables the food move easily into the intestines and lower parts. If you sleep immediately after eating food, the food remains in the stomach and intestines for a long time and that is the reason for you to feel heaviness in stomach. Fifteen minutes nap will serve the purpose, but not the deep sleep. Deep sleep after food results in the formation of belly fat.

Snacks:

Eating snacks is a habit and it is a very bad habit. People especially in the cities have developed a habit of eating snacks in the evening which is an additional burden on the body. Usually breakfast, lunch and dinner are eaten out of hunger but eating snacks is out of choice. Thanks to the liberalization of the economy many fast food centers have been set up in the metro cities to attract people with vast varieties of junk food. Children easily get attracted to these fast foods and spoil their health. Therefore stop this habit of eating snacks completely and remain healthy.

 

Dinner:

Now let us discuss all about the dinner. People are used to munch something or the other all through the wakeful hours from dawn to dusk. Heart, Lungs and Kidneys can work incessantly without rest. They are built thus. But our stomach is not created like that. After a few hours of rest it works for some time. This applies not only to humans but also to all the creatures on Earth.

The duty of the body is to digest the food eaten during the day, to carry the digested food to the rest of the parts and to provide the energy required for work. The body has to repair the affected parts during the rest period, has to create new cells, and has to drive out the waste material. For all that, necessary rest is to be provided to the body. If not, all the activities come to a stand still and body becomes stagnant and decayed internally which in turn causes diseases.

Those who eat oily and non-vegetarian food late in the night, it takes 8-10 hours to digest their food. It will be dawn by the time digestion process is completed without any rest to the intestines. If your intestines work round the clock without rest then it loses the energy and unable to clear the waste inside the body. Great diseases are born from little ailments that rise of the stagnated waste.

It is said that one has to eat food like a poor man at dinner. Therefore have a light dinner before sunset as the jatharagni-the digestive fire is low during sunset. The digestive gases are extremely mild during the night and therefore one should not eat food during night hours. Fruits and bread made up of wheat, maize, corn, bajra etc with vegetables are ideal for dinner. Due to the effects of Globalization and change in the nature of work and working hours, people in the metro cities are eating more food in dinner than their lunch as they find ample time to sit along with family members and eat for long hours. Moreover people have developed a bad habit of eating foods at restaurants or ordering foods from restaurants to their homes. This is causing all sorts of havoc to their health. After having a heavy dinner people immediately fall on bed and sleep. This is the main reason for the formation of famous Indian tummies irrespective of age and sexes.

   

Every human being commits some mistakes but he has the intelligence to correct or not to repeat the mistake again. Let us correct ourselves by changing our lifestyle by following some of the golden tips given by our ancestors as mentioned above. Let us maintain a time table as mentioned above and eat only thrice without bothering our body much. I know it is not easy for many of us due to various reasons. Everyone has a separate reason for that. But one has to take his first step towards his health before it’s too late. So my dear friends awaken before it’s too late and start moving into the path of natural way of living by stepping your first foot forward now. The second foot and many other foots follow you thereafter automatically.

This is the end of it for today. Keep watching the space for more updates.